


Captivated

by hchannibloom (bleepin_ufo), murakistags



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 03, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:02:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleepin_ufo/pseuds/hchannibloom, https://archiveofourown.org/users/murakistags/pseuds/murakistags
Summary: Alana may be Hannibal's keeper, but she still has feelings for him. Post-Digestivo (Episode 3.07) AU.Originally a Twitter RP between Hannibal/@LaDouxTromperie (as portayed by @murakisses) and Alana/@omgalanabloom (as portrayed by @hchannibloom).





	

Frankly speaking in a manner most banal, the days like clockwork are terribly boring, enough to drive even the keenest man insane. Solitarily in glass cage is not at all where a man such as Dr. Hannibal Lecter should belong, and yet that is precisely where he has found himself.

 

Circumstances have changed, and this time instead of allowing the teacup to shatter to the floor, he drops himself down before it. He saves the shards as a whole cup that it truly is, and sacrifices himself to the bruise of ground in the process. In one sense, it is love. In another, it is madness. And it is particularly madness that comes into him now in these stifling walls, this horridly full routine of merely existing from day to day. He lives in the walls of Memory Palace grandiose and walled with gold, and leaves the darker, more decrepit rooms untouched. Though no matter how many times he strides down those beautiful scenes, the door at the end of hall is inevitably opened and once more he is deposited into the droll atmosphere of terror and tension that is his cage at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

 

Some days, Hannibal is loathe to admit that he feels much like a goldfish. The orderlies that come and go do not physically prod at the expensively reinforced, bulletproof glass, but they peer and ogle as if he is a rare specimen. Like a lab rat, but one with eyes that can kill, a tone and mind and voice all so sharp that it has made orderlies time and time again stop in their tracks from even yards away at the double doors leading to the glass cell.

 

There is one person that seems utterly unaffected by him to some degree, and that is Dr. Alana Bloom.

 

The days when he can lay his murky maroon gaze upon her are beautiful and delicious, his nostrils filling with that scent familiar to him. The olfaction plucks him from that prison cell and drops him unceremoniously onto silky sheets, surrounded by bedroom walls of cobalt wallpaper and moulding at the ceiling, ivory-colored wainscoting from the polished wooden floors. Looking up to the heavens he can see her face contorted with pleasure as she rocks hips down onto his naked body, her lips parting with pleasured puffs of air, dark locks swaying in the air like long, dead fingers. Beautiful, stunning. But her presence these days is rare and Hannibal despises that. Which is precisely why when the new superintendent and his charge, Alana Bloom, finally does decide to show her pretty face to him in his cell, the serial killer psychiatrist simply cannot grasp at the given opportunity.

 

Bending forward to balance his weight evenly on his soles, Hannibal finds his forehead almost pressed to the polished glass, perilously threatening to smudge the perfection. Near his cell comes that sweet and perfumed scent, one that makes his eyes close, his handcuffed hands hanging outside of the cell walls fall slack. Fingers part and they hangs there in his restraints, head tilting back just a fraction.

 

“Good evening, Dr. Bloom.”

 

He's as polite as ever, isn't he? Such a Devil, deceptive and suave. He's also a bit of a humorist, lips parting to click very softly thereafter, the mocking tones audible beneath his accented voice.

 

“Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

 

Hannibal hadn't been the only reason Alana Bloom had agreed to take up the position of Hospital Director at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, but she'd be lying if she said it hadn't factored into her decision. Quite apart from getting the chance to prod around in his maddeningly unclassifiable brain, there was the threat to her life– and Margot's– should he ever walk free. Her instinct for self-preservation was strong, and she felt Margot had been through more than enough. Even if their initial passion had mellowed into an easy companionship, Alana felt a responsibility to protect her.

 

Then there was their son, Morgan. They'd stayed together for his sake, loved him if not each other. He was a bright boy with Alana's dark colouring but he was going to be tall, like Margot. Alana would do anything to protect him, but she was rather more pragmatic than Margot. The redhead panicked about the slightest misadventure, wanting the boy to grow up in a protective bubble. Alana tried to reason that the real world wasn't like that, as Margot well knew. So home wasn't a happy place for her, but the site of a kind of domestic farce where the darker issues in life were swept under the rug.

 

Maybe that was why heading up an asylum of degenerates appealed to Alana so much; here very few had reason to hide their sins, and even if she couldn't completely relate, she knew what it was to kill, and to love a killer. She had tasted human flesh and the sweet rush of revenge.

 

As much as Hannibal fascinated her, she was reluctant to visit him, though she watched the surveillance feed of his cell almost constantly. She wondered if his promise to kill her was born of his cold approach to slaughter, or if it was an emotional response, prompted by her disgust and rejection of the happy weeks they had spent together. But mostly Alana didn't visit because she wasn't sure she trusted herself around Hannibal. Clearly he was adept at manipulating her. And there was a part of her that wanted to let him do it. That she could command his time and attention virtually at will made her feel powerful, and the potential for emotional engagement with him was heady but dangerous. Eventually though, she knows people will start to talk if she doesn't visit the hospital's most notorious patient. Just as they will talk if she visits too often.

 

It is late, on a Friday, that she ventures into the antechamber of his cell. As expected, when he greets her he is the perfect gentleman.

 

“Hello Hannibal.”

 

She is well aware of how he spends his days, staring at the walls, pacing, and she simply folds her arms as he strains against the glass. There is so much that could be said, but now, seeing him in the flesh with his sandy grey hair falling in his eyes, words fail her.

 

Indeed there is so much to be said, yet no air to say it. For such a grandiose cell by usual standards, with high ceilings and a view of the moon, and glass walls to ease away any bits of claustrophobia, this prison cell is by all means airy. But suddenly the air feels quite like a thick smog, unwitting to fill lungs to full capacity. In other instances Hannibal might have inquired as to how she is doing, just as politely as he first addresses her. But the situation is skewed from any possible axis of normalcy, and it permeates every action and breath shared between them in the same proximity.

 

Hannibal has nothing to lose, nothing to gain aside from picking at her with words and with his mind– and that alone is a very dangerous tool, as he has demonstrated over the years. Closing his eyes in the silence, standing there with muscles somewhat taut in his uncomfortable position of wrists chained outside of the glass just tightly enough to bruise, the good doctor inhales deeply through his nose. He savours the scent and residual taste of her essence he is offered, and only then does he speak in a tone still trite and clipped. He perhaps looks pitiful then, hair greying and face mildly stubbled, the plain prison uniform completely unbecoming of him in comparison to his usual three-pieces of expensive designer brand…but he dwells little on such things. This is all he is afforded, so what pity is there to be had for what cannot be at the moment?

 

“You didn't come here to stare at me, Alana,” he says succinctly, accented words as cool as ice, as frigid as the winter on that fateful night where she freed him from stables, and he helped her in turn for hushed promises.

 

“If you had only wanted to stare, perhaps you might have watched your security cameras. But in that case, it is I who would be unable to see you. …Is that why you have come here now, then? To seek my attention?”

 

Alana contemplated her words carefully, Hannibal's brusque tone washing over her like water off a duck's back. She'd had worse, especially since she refused to give up her tailored suits which was evidently quite stimulating for some of the inmates.

 

“I thought it was about time I paid you a visit.”

 

She pulled up a chair, placing it directly in front of Hannibal's wrists, just out of reach.

 

“Not because I don't have better things to do then cross-examine you, but because, as with any institution, the downstairs likes to gossip about the upstairs, and I don't want people to think I'm afraid of you because you had Abigail nearly kill me or because you tricked me into falling in love with you,” she fixed him with a pointed but nonetheless slightly amused glare.

 

“I was such an innocent little lamb then. I suppose I have you to thank for my awakening.”

 

Alana crossed her the legs of her red pantsuit deliberately slowly, pointed black leather heel hanging off her delicate foot.

 

“I suppose I should thank Mason Verger too,” she says, pouting thoughtfully. Killing him really had been a pivotal moment in her life, much like her defenestration.

 

“You've taken so long to pay me a visit until now, that perhaps even ‘fear’ is no longer a viable excuse.”

 

Hannibal is more open like this, vulnerable but free and fully bared as the beast he is. It offers the jailed doctor freedom in equal measure so that he can be more snippy, more lewd and humourous with no consequence. He splays his fingers from beyond those cuffed wrists, almost as if unconsciously trying to reach for Alana sitting just beyond his extremely limited reach.

 

“For the record, Dr. Bloom…–” He begins, face close to the glass as he whispers and opens beady eyes suddenly to stare out at her there.

 

“–…love is not purely a psychological construct. It is entirely complex in each and every facet of it. You fell in love with me, you say? You've nobody to blame but yourself.”

 

Yes, he did blind her to his negative ways, but he was never false with her. The attraction and respect and care was very genuine and real always– and that is what she must've fallen in love with. That has nothing to do with him hiding his truer nature. Hannibal is not a magician capable of making someone fall in love with him, nor anyone else for that matter. Even God cannot impede upon that free will to love. But that aside, the jailed doctor takes another pointed stab past the glass, his tone becoming a somewhat low drawl and drawing up his lips into an amused smirk.

 

“You may no longer be such an innocent lamb, Alana, but you have not become a tiger. Motherhood molds you into more of a protective bear.”

 

He pauses, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly.

 

“…How is your son, by the way? And Margot?”

 

“You're right on that score, but did you really think I would've let it happen if I'd known about your crimes?”

 

It is an illusion Alana clings to, mostly in her public defense of her relationship with Hannibal, but here crucially so he doesn't twig to the fact she doesn't know how far she would've followed him down that dark road, maybe all the way, maybe not at all. The uncertainty haunts her, especially now that her darker instincts are rarely given the opportunity to see the light of day. At the mention of Margot her frown deepens.

 

“I expect they're looking forward to me being home for the weekend,” she says impassively, the implication being that she isn't looking forward to being home with them.

 

She is hesitant to open the can of worms that is her home situation with Hannibal. No doubt he will have some crass or cold comment on the situation. But it is plain that she's being evasive.

 

“In my own way, I always told you the truth,” Hannibal breathes evenly.

 

Which is…true. Nothing feigned aside from alluding away from claiming his crimes as his own. But then again, to be utterly fair to him, Alana hadn't ever asked him if he'd done it. Not that he would have been so open to admit to anything, no, but the fact is that Alana did not know of his crimes because she knew of his graces, and never looked past just that. The fault is thoroughly on her, he thinks, to a certain point in time.

 

Shifting on his feet in his uncomfortable position of restriction and chained wrists, Dr. Lecter licks his lips and inhales softly in pause. This is where, through the impeccably clean glass, he casts the woman with a gaze of raised brows, and with a tone pointed, level, and waiting for more from her.

 

“You are not looking forward to being home with them for the weekend,” he simply states.

 

“I'm not sure you'd understand what it's like, being that you maintain deception has never been part of your makeup,” Alana begins.

 

“…But Margot likes things just so. Specifically she doesn't want Morgan to know how he came about or indeed any unseemly fact that may impact on his perfect childhood. She has his best interests at heart, but she doesn't realise how ill-equipped Morgan will be when he no doubt discovers the truth about his past.”

 

She now wore a scowl, hard eyes misting up with tears. “How am I supposed to enjoy spending time with my son when I'm effectively lying to him?”

 

“At times the truth is necessary, however hard to digest. A truth is that… Your wife, your child, they belong to me.”

 

The way Hannibal suddenly speaks is smooth and calm, eyes like dark, murky lasers that remain unblinking for extended periods of time. 

 

“You died in my kitchen, Alana. Every moment since then is borrowed. …And yet you have the audacity to sit there and criticize my blinding you. When in fact your entire family is built upon desperate, last-ditch promises, and lies that you whisper to your own son.”

 

Alana bristles at the harsh words, though outwardly she only sits up a little straighter.

 

“So you've said. You could say my position here is entirely self-interested. Margot and I may have our differences but our son will grow to be a man, and that will be the proof of our victory.”

 

Alana got up, heels pitching her at a height closer to Hannibal's hunched form. She lowers her voice, leaning in close to the glass, but mindful of Hannibal's restrained hands.

 

“I did learn something else being your lover. Everyone thinks you're a monster, but I know you're merely a man with certain eccentric passions,” her tone is mocking, acerbic and intended to cut away at the labyrinthine branches of Hannibal's ego. 

 

“That is yet to be seen. God forbid Morgan develop…‘eccentric passions’ from the blood that flows as his heritage, or from the ones who helped him to be. One ‘eccentric passion’ being /you/, of course,” Hannibal retorts smoothly, inwardly cursing the glass that separates him from this woman now.

 

The tips of his fingers burn to touch her, to even give the chains a harsh and sudden jolt to merely see a flicker of fear in her eyes. But with her here at his hunched height like this, caustic and pointed with gaze and words, Dr. Lecter finds that he doesn't mind it in the slightest. Though the veiled jab at his skin registers, it slides right off and back into his words effortlessly in retaliation. Instead, his lips very silently twitch, unable to stop a faint smirk from forming across his angular features.

 

Alana steps back, sitting back down, her gaze unshifting from his. She finds his smug amusement infuriating; she expected cocky silence from some of the less eloquent inmates, but somehow not from Hannibal…though she supposes the crushing boredom a man of Hannibal's intelligence must experience marking time in the hostel would be more than enough to wear away any social niceties. Still, Alana has learned a modicum of patience over the years, and sets aside the anger present in her clenched fists and heaving chest.

 

“As hospital director I'm responsible for your treatment. I don't believe there's a psychiatric treatment in existence that will reform you, but I can come and see you twice a week. Unless you have a more innovative idea?”

 

Alana hardly expected Hannibal to psychoanalyse himself, but she had to give due credence to his brilliance as a psychiatrist.

 

The signs of anger on Alana Bloom's body are subtle, but Hannibal can very faintly pick up on them. The slight clench of her fist, the tension in her shoulders as she sits back down into her seat on the other side of this thick glass, and the way a sweet but mildly pungent and bitter scent of epinephrine wafts with her movement. The anger is there, but soft and fleeting and undeniably, beautifully controlled. It pleases him to know that his words– or lack thereof– have caused it. Hannibal is not so desperate for cat-and-mouse game of Mercy here, but he is somehow warmed and very grateful for the reminder that in spite of all that's happened, his current situation and her own, he is still very much capable of evoking strong reactions from her. Behind these walls, being able to manipulate even faintly with the mind means power. He will of course tread lightly, but use this wisely indeed. He fixes her with that smug expression, still.

 

“Why do you believe that there is no psychiatric treatment in existence that will reform me?”

 

Because Hannibal is not insane? Because he is a skilled psychiatrist himself? Or simply is it because Alana doesn't feel capable…? As much as he would not mind being visited twice a week by Alana, he certainly wouldn't like to deal with discussions on some disgustingly banal level of his alleged ‘insanity.’ Though the plea has spared his life in the courts, Hannibal Lecter is quick to dismiss that label.

 

Call him a monster, call him a cannibal, call him a heartless killer…but he is not insane.

 

“Because I think remorse is beyond you. I could confront you every day with the grisly details of your crimes and I think you would only take it as an opportunity to relive the pleasure you derived from those despicable acts,” Alana crosses her arms.

 

“You're not insane. I know that. Will knows that. You know that. But you're a patient here and as such I have to treat you. Unless you would prefer that I let you sit here and slowly rot?”

 

It is an empty threat and they both know it. Alana is far too fascinated by Hannibal to do such a thing.

 

“I chose my words and actions with absolute care and clarity, Dr. Bloom. Remorse and regret are not emotions I frequent.”

 

He finally speaks again after that prolonged moment of smug stare and rigid posture bent at the waist. Hannibal’s wrists chafe painfully against glass and heavy metal of handcuffs and chains, but he doesn't complain. Hannibal merely stares at Alana through that glass, eyes so vividly red and pinpoint focused, so that if he looks away she might vanish. The walls of his Memory Palace hold her too, and he would hate to blink and it all becomes a dream. Perhaps that is the power which Alana holds over him: the connection they have, will always have. Yet his words say otherwise, a cleverly-built front:

 

“You will not leave me here alone, of that much I am certain. You cannot keep away from me, even if you try your hardest.”

 

Hannibal's pointed stare and even sharper words send a shiver through Alana’s body. To an inexperienced eye it may look like fear, despite Alana's steady returned gaze. To someone as astute as Hannibal, it is clear from the tight squeeze of Alana's crossed thighs and the faint but unmistakable scent of her core that it is more likely an expression of desire, brought about by the same commanding tone he used towards her routinely in the ancient past. Alana struggles to keep her breathing even.

 

“There is some contention about whether I should. Some think our past closeness puts me at a disadvantage as they see it as a threat to my objectivity. Others think our shared past gives me the ability to see past your obfuscation. I wonder what your take is? Do you think you're still capable of blinding me?”

 

The conversation is incidental, an excuse to continue the intense gaze she is sharing with Hannibal. She squeezes her thighs together again, biting her crimson lower lip as she feels the corresponding wave of lust.

 

The sights come before the scent. Hannibal does not actively avert his gaze from Alana's own, no. He holds firm and keen as ever, clinging tightly to each and every glimmering hue of blue flecked in those irises. But in his periphery he can see the pearly white of teeth sinking into bottom lip, and /that/ makes his gaze flicker away just slightly. 

 

Eyelashes flutter and his eyes close for a moment, his nostrils flare with a sudden and deep inhale. Though the smell is dulled and only filtered through small holes in the glass, it is there and explicitly present. It's a musky, flowery scent bittersweet, of arousal and desire. He knows that scent all too well– he's quite intimate with it, lips and nose pressed to her neck as he has rocked their bodies in passionate tandem. It's a beautiful memory that comes flooding back now, and one that molds his answer with confident purpose: 

 

“Yes,” Hannibal states, simply. He is capable of blinding her, just as she is capable of taking aim and harm at him. 

 

With these chains on his wrist, he is no less dangerous, but it does elevate Alana to a bit of power over him. Only in the physical sense, that is. And here Hannibal has never stolen physical power or taken advantage of her in the physical sense; all those times of intimacy were clearly of mutual desire and want, and benefit. That is precisely what makes this situation now so…/unique/. 

 

“Being fully cognizant is now your weapon, but one that comes at a hefty price,” the chained man says, eyes opening slowly to broadcast maroon shades most definitely darker and murky than before. “One can only be fully aware of another, if one loves them. To know me so well as to not possibly be blinded again… do you love me, Alana?” The words hang in the air like the dull and deep tolling of a old clock, the silence heavy thereafter.

 

Alana swallows hard at the question. That they have a connection that cannot be severed is not in doubt. But to put labels to it, especially ones as loaded as /love/, that is /dangerous/. 

 

Alana doesn't miss Hannibal's eyes flickering closed, biting hard on her lip as she observes the flash of sensual connoisseur on Hannibal's features, one she is much familiar with. 

 

"I loved you once." She confesses "But one might argue I couldn't really love you then, not knowing you whole. Popular opinion is I shouldn't be naive enough to fall in love with you again. Fool me once, shame on you and all that." 

 

Her voice drops to barely a whisper "And yet..." She draws a shaky breath, the back of her hand glancing over his cuffed hands. "Maybe I never stopped loving you." The touch is withdrawn quickly, but with deep reluctance. 

 

A sudden burning question comes forth on his tongue, but is bitten down until it simmers away into harsh smoke again. Hannibal wants so suddenly to ask if she /could/ love him now, even so with all that she now knows. Would her /knowing/ really make a difference in the grander scheme of things? Love is finicky in that way, persistent and strong. It shows in her words and expressions, her small actions. Hannibal can /feel/ it, that appreciation and quite possibly an earnest /love/ that perplexes him and yet draws him a bit closer. 

 

He does not return the sentiment so strongly, he is well-aware. All of his love was once reserved for someone who could not accept it…and here he is to pay the price. That someone was not Alana Bloom, and yet here she is in all of her pretty glory, outside of the cage as his keeper, and brushing her hands to his briefly as if the softness and understanding she can offer is true. 

 

The chained psychiatrist hardly takes the bait, and his fingertips barely twitch in response, that gaze finally averting to instead look upwards. Tilting his head back just so, he can admire the soft tones of the sky from the glass far, far above him. It seems to suck the warmth from his tone. Both the sun and the feeling of her warm skin steal it entirely from him. It leaves Hannibal desolate. 

 

“…Even as you can now see me as the so-called ‘monster’ that I am?” It sounds almost pitiful, and innocent. Quiet, soft.

 

Alana knows he loves Will, obsessively so, but there is a voice of false reason that chatters in her head, telling her that because she has known him longer, or perhaps because she can love him like Will can't, she is closer to him, worthy of his love. It is a dangerous realisation that her feelings are so strong; one she struggles with every day. 

 

"I-" her breath catches in her throat, followed shortly by bile rising from her stomach. She swallows it down. "I wish I didn't." It is a lie, as much to herself as to Hannibal. She laces her fingers together to prevent herself reaching out to touch him.

 

This moment holds a great deal of power, he thinks. It is full of depth and emotion, even unspoken. Instead, all of it is silently written into their expressions suspended upon time, reflecting back and forth in the warm glow of lamp cutting through the thick glass wall. The chains on his wrists feel all the more heavy then, knowing that he cannot reach out to her so easily. Even if that were the case, his fingers fail to even twitch again. Indeed he must behave himself, even if the temptation to solidify his grasp on Alana Bloom is very, very pungent. 

 

Instead, Hannibal continues to look up at the sky past the atrium-like ceiling panes, watching the soft fluff of dusky clouds wisp away oh-so slowly. It's a moment where he offers the woman respect, instead of allowing himself to mock her for her emotions. Hannibal isn't so cruel. 

 

“Do you trust me?” It's a loaded question suddenly and they both know it. She may be wishing she doesn't have feelings for him, but Hannibal knows too well that part of her will always be so. Surely /she/ herself must understand that. 

 

But what Hannibal desires is primary to quiet manipulation and goading like this: he wants her to realize where the source of that love truly exists. He wants her to realize that he is not the one who purposefully swayed her heart, that she was never a simple game to be played, even though she had been a means to an end. He /needs/ her to see that their time was genuine, just as it is now. Regardless of their positions in and out of these chains, that rings painfully true. 

 

“Do you trust me to be honest with you? …It was never my intention to hurt you, Alana. You made that decision yourself. It makes what we were together– what we could be together– all the more bittersweet, doesn't it?”

 

/"Do you trust me?"/ The words prompt a kind of fear in Alana, one that twists through her insides and knots against the nausea already lying there. She is thankful that his eyes are cast skyward, affording her the privacy for a few silent tears. Oh yes, she trusts him, and how she wishes she didn't. 

 

To calm herself she watches him. Even in chains, with his gaze to the heavens, there is a noble beauty to this man, monster they may call him but Alana knows his humanity all too well. 

 

As he clarifies his question, a dry chuckle issues from Alana's throat. "I can't deny you've always been honest to me, Hannibal. You've always kept your word. And I know how far that word extends. To my life and the life of my family."

 

Even as the crisp scent of salty tears wafts to his nostrils after a few moments, Hannibal says nothing of it. No goading, unnecessarily harsh quips or teases. By all accounts, he is being /dreadfully/ civil. …For those few fleeting moments, at the very least. Thereafter he is unforgiving as ever, focusing his beady maroon gaze back on her, cutting right through the glass. 

 

Her dry chuckle rings in his ears, and so do her words. In fact, they prompt him to let loose a little, to push her just a /bit/ more, and purposefully so. Quieter than before is his accented voice, but no less concise and suave. 

 

“I spun you gold, Alana, and thus upheld my portion of our little Devil's bargain,” he exhales first, pausing shortly. “Do you respect that, I wonder? …Or do you resent me for it? Do you object to it with every selfish bone in your body, while throwing one-half of the promise to the wind? While knowing fully well that if you hold me here in chains, confined in this cell like a monster where you can monitor me at all hours of the day, no harm can come to you? Nor to Morgan, nor Margot?” His teeth click and he tsks softly, almost as if disapproving. “…I think I would deserve better than that, Alana. That you would uphold my words as they are, if only for nothing more than a courtesy and cordial thank-you for giving you a family at all.”

 

Alana doesn’'t appreciate his brashness and responds with her own steely gaze. "I suppose my instinct for self-preservation is stronger than my instinct for politeness. After all, if you're going to kill me anyway I can be as rude as I please." She regards him almost with amusement "You're right though, I'm the one with the power here. I could use that to make you more comfortable. Though I'd hardly do it out of some misguided notion of /owing/ you something." She leans forward, pulling out a tiny silver key and releasing Hannibal from the over-tight cuffs. "I'm listening."

 

“To offer a halfhearted motion to make me more ‘comfortable’ here is hardly a fair trade for what I have accomplished at your urging. One might think less of you, Alana. Only a life for a life will do.” Unchained though his wrists may be, they still throb with chafe of the hard steel, both hands hanging limply and loosely outside the holes in cell glass wall. He doesn't draw back inside yet, not entirely. The prisoner remains standing as if still shackled in place within his little cage. “…Then again, you have all but brazenly noted that you would do away with pretense. You would be rude if only to spite me. I deserve better than that, as do you.”

 

"How would you prefer me to behave? Like a simpering idiot showing deference to you at every turn? A sad, love sick little woman? You well know I'm not the woman I was. Perhaps you demand a life for a life, but how do you hope to fulfil that from within these walls? You're hardly in a position to harm me here." A wicked glint rose in her eyes. "And don't forget I have as much /power/ to make your conditions unpleasant as I do to make them pleasurable."

 

“No,” he answers simply, ushering away all of those unsightly adjectives with a mere flicker of his thick fingertips. 

 

Alana Bloom is not a lovesick idiot, nor is she…/simpering/. If that were the case, he would be entirely disappointed in her, to be frank. If that were the case, perhaps he would have had Alana for dinner a long, long time ago. But this, is not that. This is a tug of war, back and forth through these little holes in his glass cage. His castle looms behind him, just crumbling to stone, and with every brick that disintegrates to dust on his walls, one more firm one is erected on Alana's. Hannibal doesn't mind it, not entirely. He's curious to see what she will /do/ with her ‘power,’ and how far she is willing to bend into the unorthodox, with only spite and defiance against him in her veins. 

 

“Would that please you now? To enact your ‘power’ and watch me suffer? …Excellent, Alana. You are learning.

 

Although her threat is hardly an empty one, Alana has not devised any specific punishments for Hannibal...yet. In truth, the power itself is heady enough, and her enduring affection for the cannibal doctor makes it difficult for her to imagine causing him real suffering. Her thoughts are almost kinky, revolving around making him admit to his real feelings about her, whatever they may be.

 

“To where do your thoughts stray, Alana?” Hands uncuffed slip back into his glass cell, his lean and tall body twisting away from the transparent barrier between them. Silence is fleeting, and disrupted by a lewd challenge of sorts; however else will the doctor entertain himself so, when his ‘guest’ is quiet? 

 

“In your eyes I see reflected great hypotheses, curiosities, and awe. You wore the very same kittenish look the very first day we met, in the hospital. You wore it again the night I took you to bed after my dinner party.”

 

Her eyes will always betray her, no matter how firmly she sets her pout. She too turns her back, it is easier to lie that way. 

 

"Just imagining all the horrible things I could visit on you. You have been declared insane after all. And even if we both know it's a fallacy, the board would be quite lenient with unorthodox therapies, given your level of what they would call barbarism." 

 

She lets the words hang a moment, as if to give weight to her dully predictable response. Yet she is hit by a pang of guilt. She is not cruel, even when it would perhaps serve her better to be so. 

 

She turns back to face Hannibal, voice a throaty whisper, eyes shining "We could destroy each other, couldn't we?"

 

“Potent doses of psychoactive medicines, electroconvulsive therapy, or perhaps even a lobotomy. You surely have learned of these methods before I became your mentor. Will you impress upon me now?” 

 

He answers, back to her as well, in him silently crossing the space between glass and where his desk sits. Upon his bolted stool, he perches quietly, facing the glass once more as he remains there at his desk, the surface neat with portions of dark charcoal and paper for his drawings. Hannibal does not look up again, not even when he can hear Alana move, feel her sharp gaze on him from across the large room. The glass refracts none of her shining stare or her words, and they reach his ears smoothly. 

 

Without much thought, there is charcoal in hand and he is gliding it in small, lithe strokes across the paper laid out before him, his other hand with palm flat against the sheet to steady it. Where his hair might have once fallen into his face as he leans forward to sketch, his hair is now cut very short, no more than little wisps of grey-blonde jutting from his skull, silent and steady. 

 

“We are destroying one another, in perfect harmony.” 

 

This is his simple answer to her thick voice. He can tell that tears threaten to bubble over, but he does not comment on that, nor does he glance up to see. “Though I alone would have fallen, Alana, had you chosen to be blind.”

 

"They're... options." Alana dismisses the conversation with a wave of her hand. Though she's hardly in the mood to discuss her blindness or lack thereof. 

 

"I prefer us as equals." She replies bluntly. "Though that's not what we are now either, but I feel there's a lot more parity to this arrangement than there was before you returned from Italy." It's as close as she'll come to admitting that she's not, nor ever will be, completely in control of Hannibal. 

 

“Perhaps so,” he agrees, attention both focused on the conversation with the woman outside of his cell, and on the sketch steadily taking form under his fingers. The charcoal smudges on his hands, but he pays it no mind as he goes along. What he does not offer, however, is another glance to meet Alana's gaze across the large expanse between them. 

 

“You do hold the key to my cage,” Hannibal adds, voice almost a soft echo against the glass wall. “You once asked me this: ‘Could I have ever understood you?’ …And what was my response, Alana? If we each cannot understand one another entirely, can we truly be equal? Do you feel as though you understand me?” 

 

There's a pause, charcoal stilling against page, the air charged as Hannibal offers up a proverbial hand. “Perhaps I will agree to entertain your inquires, Doctor Bloom, to whet your appetite and curiosities. Perhaps I will even speak truthfully. Would that please you?”

 

"I believe I understand you better than I ever have before." She tilts her head thoughtfully, slightly maddened by his evasiveness. "I also believe I will spend the rest of my life trying to understand you completely." She steps towards the glass, her nose nearly pressed against it. "Your cooperation would certainly be beneficial to that pursuit."

 

Hannibal sees no purpose in restating aloud lessons that have already been learned– everything comes at a price. Alana may speak freely, inquire what she will, but Hannibal will be free to answer as he sees fit…not to mention developing a bargaining chip once he has piqued so much of her curiosity that it would /kill/ her, for the rest of her life, if he decides to stop talking. Equal and opposite forces will be at play, as usual. Like everything else in the universe. 

 

“Then please have a seat. Choose your words wisely. Let us begin.”

 

As he looks up from his drawing, places down the charcoal upon the sheet of a sketch partially Alana Bloom's visage, and finally meets her /true/ gaze across the cell, Hannibal can't help his own amusement. Like this, who exactly will be the psychiatrist, and who will be the patient?

 

Alana nods, glad for the opportunity. She lingers in their shared gaze for a moment before she sits, feeling a little naked without her notepad and fountain pen. 

 

But these conversations will not be a matter of public record; they are part of Alana’s private pleasure. They will be burned into her mind and she will record them later, when and if it is appropriate. 

 

She considers starting with an easy topic, attempting to lull the cannibal into a false sense of security, but decides instead to strike while the iron is hot, and ask him something he has never in their long years of friendship revealed to her. 

 

"Tell me about your childhood."

 

Right between the eyes to start, hm? Alana Bloom is clearly in no mood to beat around the bush. Instead she claws most immediately into the very depths of his mind. Hannibal cannot hide the smile it draws across his face as he watches her. 

 

“A bold first move, but a very vague one. You'll have to rephrase your question.” His words aren't meant to goad her– not /yet/, at least– but rather inspire a more specific question to start things off.

 

"Well let's start at the beginning then. Where were you born, what were your parents like, what are your earliest memories?" It was routine stuff, but maybe what Alana needed was a fresh approach, a clean slate for her investigation.

 

Better. As loathe as Hannibal is to approach these memories, he steels himself and does just that. The cell in which he is trapped becomes a window, from one realm into the next, back in time, hazy and murky in places, bright in others. Hands folded on the desk before him, the doctor peers calmly across at Alana, and begins to speak. 

 

“I was born in Lithuania. A big castle, though within a very small town. That is where I lived with my parents.” He does not say their names aloud; that would almost be too much, too soon. “My parents were as most parents are: loving, but not obsessive. They provided for me all the necessities, and even more beyond that. …My earliest memories consist of watching the cook create pastries for evening dessert. I would sneak a piece, and he would always be very furious, shooing me along. I can remember the smell of freshly washed cotton and lavender soaps by the bath. I remember the way the southernmost stone in the courtyard lane would always shift out of place, and that I once hid a small tin bracelet beneath one of the bricks. I wonder if the wind has taken it from that grave.”

 

Alana listens intently "Even at such a young age your memory was sharp. Not many would remember such detail forty years later. Did you have any friends your own age? It sounds like quite an isolated, if privileged, existence." 

 

Instead of gracing her semi-compliment(?) with a word, he instead closes his eyes for a brief second and nods, head canting just so in response. This precedes his shifting slightly in his seat, taking a moment to chose words wisely. “I did not. When I was younger, I did not go to school. I was home-schooled.” 

 

The flash of a bright-eyed little girl across his vision makes Hannibal's insides clench with pain, and it feels like a crisp slap across the face. He truly does not want to overthink it, but so long as they do not delve too deep, he will be able to manage. “At the time, I found friendship mainly in my younger sister.” 

 

"Isolated then." Alana says, mostly for her own benefit. "What did you feel towards your sister? Is your relationship strong still?" She was leaning forward in her chair, hanging off Hannibal's every measured, revealing word.

 

“I felt great love for my sister. I still do.” The L-word is not something that a man such as Hannibal Lecter would utter so carelessly into the air, however pressed or desperate, or emotional. 

 

That alone is a testament to the importance of his words in this conversation, only further enhanced by the way his breathing slows all the more, his gaze grows just the /slightest/ bit more distant. It's a wound fresh, one that will never heal…memories of the savagery that one fateful, war-torn winter in rural Lithuania. 

 

“My sister is no longer alive.” That is easy for him to say, because it is merely stating fact. Time has not and will not reverse, and he will not have his sister back with him ever again. That is easy to accept…on most days and nights, at least. The hard part is accepting what had become of her. It almost makes him want to stop talking entirely. This tale, is one that he has told nobody. Not even Will. And Hannibal isn't quite sure he's ready.

 

"I'm sorry," Alana’s tone is genuine but she retains that air of 'therapist' "You've never spoken of her before, by which I surmise you still find her memory painful for some reason." Her tone turns more sympathetic "How old were you when she died?"

 

Alana Bloom is no more ‘sorry’ than anyone else that has uttered the phrase out of sheer guilt or obligation. He has a split-second desire to childish exclaim that she cannot be sorry for something she doesn't understand. But the man remains calm and quiet, tongue still against the back of his sharp teeth. His throat tastes bitter, all the more with his very true and very painful few words: 

 

“Too young.” 

 

And that should suffice enough. Shouldn't it?

 

Alana can sense Hannibal's impatience and sensitivity about the subject, but she was like a dog with a bone. "Tell me about it?"

 

“She was murdered.” 

 

The words come hastily and with obvious fervent impatience now. He takes no caution to hide it, and it echoes out in the large room, traveling all the way up the dome above to meet the glass warmed by incoming afternoon sun. Yet, nothing seems colder. It's as if that winter chill is invading him again, freezing his lips together and forcing pause.

 

Alana notices him detach from the conversation, look desperately beyond the confines of his cell for a comfort that will never come. She pauses her relentless line of questioning for a moment, concern for her patient's emotional state at the forefront. "Hannibal, are you okay?" She asks again in her therapist’s voice, smooth as silk and tempered with the appropriate amount of gentle concern.

 

“According to you, Dr. Bloom, am I ever ‘okay?’” 

 

He turns it back upon her with ferocity. The revisiting of memories has stripped away a big of his guise as well as added a layer of tenacity unlike before. In some ways, he wishes that he could find enough trust and solace in Alana to confide. In another way, he despises her to the bone for taking such a smooth and clinical demeanour with him. He likes it, hates it. Hannibal isn't sure which emotion he feels /more/.

 

“I'm your doctor. While I may disagree with the court's verdict, I'm happy to see you alive, and your care is my responsibility." She seems unfazed by his harsh tone, Hannibal has revealed much in a short time, no doubt he is feeling vulnerable.

 

His care. Her responsibility. If Hannibal's compassion for Will were not so strong, the manipulation and heartbreak of rejection clawed so deeply into his skin until it hooks and tugs at his bones, Hannibal most certainly would not be in a situation such as this. 

 

Alana Bloom is a woman with whom he shares many memories, and many words, many hushed moans and glides of bodies as well. But no precious relationship with her has led them to this point. This is new. This is change. Hannibal is indeed feeling vulnerable and it manifests in his vague mannerisms and tones. 

 

“Of course. Both you and those rest in esteemed psychiatric circles are very pleased to have me alive, and here. Perhaps I would unknowingly offer insight on my ‘condition,’ yes? Are you fishing for details of my past, doctor, to create and align with my present? That is very lazy psychiatry. Not to mention presumptuous.” And he only chirps on her because of it all, so that he doesn't have to think of himself or what he is in danger of revealing to this woman.

 

"I simply seek to understand you better. I don't intend to share my findings with the psychiatric community. This is for my-" She pauses, searching for the right word, "-/personal/ interest." Alana leans forward, resting her forearms on her knees. 

 

"I don't see that I can build a patient-psychiatrist relationship with you when you fear me sharing your most deeply held memories and secrets with my colleagues." 

 

She did not pay mind to their much stronger, or at least more established relationship. Their unspoken spark and connection was undeniable despite Alana's attempts to remain detached, professional. Hannibal's confessions slipped from simply being recorded by Alana’s agile mind to shaping her perception of Hannibal on a more personal level.

 

It isn't fear, not really. Not at all, actually. Hannibal does not fear that Alana would be so bold to break the confines of doctor-patient confidentiality to publish or speak on his responses to her questions. Hannibal mostly believes that Alana will not stray from strict confidentiality because she is firmly of the thought that she is the doctor, he is the patient. Hannibal does not share that presumption. He makes that much very, very clear. 

 

“A doctor-patient relationship is innately one with a dynamic of difference in power. You may hold the key to this cell, Alana, but your personal interest alone is what places you at a level far lower. How easily you admit your raw curiosity.” Indeed if one were to perhaps turn the camera and look from the other side of the glass, lines are more blurry. There is no clear distinction between doctor and patient here.

 

“This is for your ‘personal interest.’ You are not my psychiatrist.”

 

"According to the records of this hospital I am. If in name only." Her gaze is firm. "And yet despite this perceived lack on my part, you've agreed to answer my questions, more or less. Surely you would've anticipated that our therapeutic relationship would be far from conventional when you agreed to do so." She is trying to make him see that his predicament is as much his own making as it is from her /unprofessional/ curiosity.

 

“Perhaps it is merely a bartering chip,” he wonders aloud, unfazed and unafraid of musing like this, with Dr. Bloom. “I satiate your personal curiosity, in return for…what? It hardly seems fair in some respects. Perhaps this is where I can promise to discontinue this conversation, unless you can promise to offer me a desire of my own in exchange.”

 

"I have some influence in that regard, as you well know. There are limits, of course, but if your request is reasonable may just grant it." She is plain about her desire to make the exchange. In truth there is little she wouldn't do just to keep him talking, to keep the fascinating deeply held secrets falling from his narrow lips.

 

Her words please him immensely, but it is not obviously written across his face for a few moments yet thereafter. Suddenly a smile creeps up to his features, handsome and warm, so far distances from any of the crimes of which he has been convicted. It is as if he is many years ago again, when they were close colleagues, closer lovers. 

 

“I would like very much to have dinner with you, Alana. To sit across from you, and have dinner.” 

 

A dangerous request? Perhaps. But he does not object to even having his hands chained at all times. He will agree to that, should she accept his simple request. A pity, he thinks, that they are past the times of his freedom for elegance. He would have quite liked to scribe her name in detailed, cursive calligraphy, upon an enveloped invitation, just once more.

 

/Dinner?/ Alana schools her face into an impassive expression, even though she knows it will not hide her surprise from Hannibal even for a moment. 

 

It would appear, beneath all his complaining he values her company highly. That or he plans to use the opportunity to his own ends. As Alana plays the scenario over in her mind, she quickly realises it's a situation that she desires herself. An excuse to share the fundamentally intimate relationship they share. 

 

Of course he will be shackled, with guards posted outside at the ready. But Alana feels no threat from Hannibal in such a situation; it is simply not his style. After musing for a few minutes, she speaks. 

 

"Alright. Tomorrow I will have your cell set up appropriately. I will provide a gourmet meal paired with wine, and we will dine together. You will remain shackled and after we eat the cutlery will be inventoried to make sure you haven't stolen anything. Those are the terms." 

 

She is quickly on her feet. "Do you accept?"

 

“I accept,” Hannibal readily states, the simple two words cementing what could very well be a disaster, or a breakthrough. All in good time, he supposed, they will see exactly what is to come of it. 

 

Frankly, he is not surprised that Alana agrees. By all accounts, such a request is indeed tame. Well…tame /enough/, as one apparently cannot be too careful around one Dr. Lecter. In fact, his gaze turns a hair distant again, drawing a great anticipation into his chest for what's to come in this tease of normalcy tomorrow. It…almost makes him forget his position, for just a second. But when his mind is pulled back to the present and he opens his eyes, he is seated again in this cage, and it is unpleasant. At least, perhaps, this is a step in what he seems to be the right direction. 

 

“A pity I can no longer cook for you, Alana. I know you enjoyed it.” 

 

Never mind that the food was people. 

 

“This will just have to do.” 

 

Unfortunately so.

 

"All things considered, I prefer it this way." A smile twitches on those rosy lips, it wouldn't do to be caught making light of Hannibal's crimes, but it was /funny/, even if it was gallows humour. 

 

"Good night Hannibal," Alana's honeyed tone is worn, but still present. 

 

She combs her fingers through her hair as she moves towards the exit, mind returning to more mundane concerns; what disaster of a meal Margot has prepared for her and Morgan. Which film her son will pick for the evening's viewing. Pleasant enough, but boring and trivial when compared with Hannibal. She looks forward to dinner.

 

Hannibal's lips also twitch, but unlike before when he would be hiding behind the veil of innocence, his crimes are now all upon brazen display for the world, including Alana, to see. It makes him smile uninhibited for a flash of a few seconds bearing all of his sharp and pearly teeth. In spite of the gesture, he is polite as ever, even inclining his head in repose. 

 

“Good night, Alana.” 

 

Then, they part. Hannibal is left to wonder if she will still think of him, even when in the presence of her wife and child. Will he pervade her mind still? It is wholly his intention. If Alana Bloom thinks a single longing or curious thought of him outside the looming walls of the BSHCI, Hannibal would consider it a tiny victory. 

 

When the doctor works at his drawing for the rest of that evening, quietly eats his offered unappetizing gruel of a prison dinner, he too thinks of Alana. Her face emerges from little markings of charcoal against the textured sheet of paper, heart-shaped and with warm eyes that seemingly want to save the world, learn all there is to know about the monsters. An intelligent, beautiful woman. She emerges into his page, the edges of the large sheet still left empty and to be soon enough annotated with more detail. 

 

The night is long, but free of terror. Nightmares are not unlikely an occurrence for Hannibal Lecter, nor have they been strangers to his sleepy mind over the long years. By now he has developed a knack for sleeping lightly, jolting awake just quietly enough to not startle himself from the painfully skewed memories in his head.


End file.
